Educational Philosophy and Theory, Vol. 42, No.

3, 2010
doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.2007.00373.x

Education and/or Displacement?

A Pedagogical Inquiry into
Foucaults Limit-Experience
Christiane Thompson
Department of Educational Science, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg

Abstract
This paper is concerned with the educational-philosophical implications of Michel Foucaults
work: It poses the question whether Michel Foucaults remarks surrounding limit-experience
can be placed in an educational context and provide an alternative view regarding the
relationship that we maintain to ourselves. As a first step, the significance of limitexperience for Foucaults historicophilosophical investigations, his critical ontology of the
present, is examined. Far from being an external marking point, it can be shown that
limit-experience lies at the centre of Foucaults approaches to the history of thought. As a
second step, the resistance of Foucaults work against its integration into the educational
realm is examined: Coming from Foucaults limit-experience, it is possible to problematize
a specific way we speak about learning and education. As a subsequent step, this resistance
is given a constructive turn: The practices of writing and reading (related to limitexperience) could provide a valuable irritation for philosophers of education by exposing
them to the challenges of singularity in education. It is argued that specifically the writing
practice could be helpful for educational studies in order to inquire into the complex
relationship of subject, power, and truth within the educational realm. Finally, the
possibilities and difficulties of provoking such a writing practice are mentioned.
Keywords: experience, Michel Foucault, pedagogical critique, writing as
desubjectivation, singularity

In his interview with Ducio Trombadori, Michel Foucault claims that what he is
saying has no objective value (Foucault, 2000, p. 257). Foucault is eager to point
out that his writings are not oriented toward the location of truth or a tenable
account of the issues treatedthey do not call for an author who takes responsibility with respect to the proposed theses. Instead of a vigorous engagement with
the validity and legitimacy of his findings, Foucault interprets his efforts as standing for the spirit of change; predominantly changing Foucault himself, but also the
readerin an unpredictable way: I write a book only because I still dont exactly
know what to think about this thing I want so much to think about, so that the
book transforms me and transforms what I think (ibid., pp. 23940). Foucault
2007 The Author
Journal compilation 2007 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia
Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

362

Christiane Thompson

distinguishes the books that are based on this kind of writing from those belonging
to a scientific setting, i.e. to a setting where one has to argue for a position, is
challenged by others and possibly even defeated. The latter writing is called a truth
book or a demonstration book (ibid., p. 246). Books of this kind maintain a
specific relation to understanding in that the writer submits herself to determined
standards in order to justify and constitute knowledge. In contrast, the so-called
experience books come as somewhat of a surprise: Methods are applied that have
not been determined prior to the event of writing, while the objects of investigation
are represented following a manifold of threads. Foucault utilizes the term experience because the books are to bring about something that one comes out of
transformed. If I had to write a book to communicate what Im already thinking
before I begin to write, I would never have the courage to begin (ibid., p. 239).
Foucault reclaims an open and uncontrolled practice of writing that could bring
about new perspectives for the writer and the readers.
Foucaults reference to experience and change, his understanding of the practices
of writing and reading are of interest to educational research: for learning bears
strong connections to the concept of transformation. In learning, the learner gains
a new perspective on the world as well as on herself. Learning means change and
transformation in that it implies an experience that is singular, determinative and
irrevocable for the learner. Walter Benjamin once described this insight as follows:
Now I can walk, but no longer can I learn to walk (Benjamin, 1992). Learning
brings the individual in contact with a different view of the world, and it is impossible for the learner to go back to the viewpoint as it was maintained before. Given
the fact that the history of the philosophy of education has often seen a strong
connection between the concepts of experience and learning,1 it does not seem
farfetched to ask whether Foucaults remarks surrounding experience do have an
educational bearing.
With this idea in mind, it does not come as a surprise that Foucaults reference
to experience has been taken up from a perspective indebted to the philosophy of
education.2 Jan Masschelein (2006) has recently dealt with Foucaults concept of
experience seeking to clarify the limits of governmentality. In his article, Masschelein attempts to make out a path between the nave and romantic affirmation
of experience and its dogmatic rejection. According to Masschelein, Foucaults
remarks on experience as limit-experience go together with a critical endeavour, an
attitude of ex-position, which allows to hear and see (i.e. to experience) something
other and in this way enables to liberate the gaze and the thoughts, so that the
author (and the reader of these books) can see not only something other, but also
can see and think differently and transform herself (Masschelein, 2006, p. 568).
In this context, Masschelein comes to interpret limit-experiences in terms of an
e-ducative practice (in the sense of leading out, ibid.). Limit-experiences, as
proposed by Foucault, do not hint at a specific body of knowledge or a determinate
set of ideas or competences. Rather, they have to do with a break away from
ourselves, and therefore, a change in our relationship to ourselves. Reaching the
borders of subjectivity, Masschelein states, we come in touch with the limits of the
governmental regime. For Masschelein, these thoughts end with the question
2007 The Author
Journal compilation 2007 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia

Education and/or Displacement?

363

regarding the status of experience: Is it a purely negative category or does it

receive a positive value? Can it at all be transferred into a philosophical-educational
context, i.e. a classical truth book setting? (Masschelein, 2006, p. 573).
Considering the present state of the discussion, a further investigation regarding
the relationship between Foucaults concept of experience or limit-experience, on
the one hand, and the educational realm or the educational category of learning,
on the other, will have to deal with two tasks. Firstly, I think it is necessary to
analyze more closely the role that limit-experience plays within Foucaults work.
Here, my statement is that, far from being only an external marking point for
Foucault, limit-experience is the necessary complement to his genealogical undertaking, i.e. to the specific historicophilosophical practice that Foucault undertakes.
In the first part of my paper, I will, therefore, spell out this concept with reference
to what Foucault has called a critical ontology of the present (Section 1). This
intimate tie between limit-experience and the critical ontology of the present is
important to us as philosophers of education because it allows us to demonstrate
the resistance against the integration of Foucaults thoughts into the philosophicaleducational realm. In other words, coming from Foucaults critical ontology of the
present, it seems possible to problematize a certain idea of education and learning
as well as the way we speak about educational issues (Section 2).
As a subsequent step, I would like to take up this resistance of Foucaults work
against educational theory by posing the question of whether the practices of
writing and reading (related to limit-experience) might provide a valuable irritation
for us as philosophers of education and as teachers: In relation to the challenges
that singularity harbours for pedagogical thought and action, I would like to present
a different practice of writing within educational studies, a writing practice engaged
in the complex relationship of subject, power, and truth within the educational
setting and regarding our own engagement with theoretical frameworks (Section 3).
Some preliminary remarks regarding the possibilities and difficulties of such a
writing practice will be given.
1. ... Making Intelligible a Singular Positivity in that which is Precisely
Singular3
For a figure like Michel Foucault, it seems misplaced to offer an expression that
could sum up his main idea or interest. Not only does Foucault present the development of his investigatory undertakings as an unpredictable and heterogeneous
set of observations and findings; his point of departure is a radically historical
perspective, a perspective that calls into question the continuity of history through
a sense-giving subject or (other) historically invariant structures. The significance
of this point for the human sciences is what Foucault attempts to bring to our
attention: It is, according to Foucault, impossible to determine finally human
beings in their being, and therefore, it seems inadequate to encapsulate Foucaults
work in one phrase, such as that he is concerned with the cultural invention of
man or the impossibility of providing a formula of genesis regarding man. In
contrast to a thinker like (the early) Heidegger who saw the essence of Dasein in
2007 The Author
Journal compilation 2007 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia

364

Christiane Thompson

its existence (Heidegger, 1993, p. 42), Foucault distances himself from traditional
philosophical categories even if they are said to grasp human beings anthropological
indeterminacy.
Foucault goes one step further by clarifying what it is that motivates our conceptualizations of human being by engaging in an analysis regarding the historical
genesis of these conceptualizations, be they scientifically motivated or not. The
general leading question, here, is: How does knowledge (about man) become
constituted looking at it as an instant placed in historical and social contexts?
Foucault puts the philosophical coherence of the human sciences and their knowledge regarding ourselves into a different light when locating the contingency of their
historical appearance: Human being as the subject and object of knowledge is e.g.
a structure of experience that only emerged at the beginning of the 19th century
(Foucault, 1994). The depth of this finding lies in the density of the given material,
and is hardly appreciated when recapitulated in a general statement.
However, in later interviews, Foucault himself generally characterized his historicophilosophical work as being concerned with the three axes of truth, power, and
the subject as well as their relation to one another (Foucault, 1990, pp. 512). The
three axes intertwine and outline archaeological-genealogical projects. The archaeology attempts to make knowledge graspable on the grounds of the structures and
rules within discourses: Foucault once determined the archaeologist as an ethnologist of the own culture in that she regards culture as something unfamiliar and
strange, and thereby starts to explicate the contingent but historically constitutive
factors of our experience (Foucault, 1981). In so doing, the borders of what we
regard as true are laid out.
The archaeological analyses of the structure of discourses in their continuity and
discontinuity, their manifestation as well as their ambivalences remained in a sense
abstract because they refrained from the societal situatedness of discourses, and
treated their objects as merely historical appearances. Therefore, the archaeology
points beyond itself: It suggests the question regarding the social structures in
which knowledge is manufactured, thought to be valid and relevant. The concept
of power is thought to make this very strategic network accessible.4 However,
Foucault does not speak in the name of truth and modern science buttaking up
Nietzsches concept of genealogy (Foucault, 1987)intends to make visible
multiple lines and networks regarding the relation of knowledge and power, e.g.
the disciplinary formation of the self-observing and responsible individual
(Foucault, 1977).
Thus, the historicophilosophical procedure suggested by Foucault is concerned
with the positivity of knowledge elements and their relation to specific social
practices:
What one seeks then is not to know what is true or false, justified or not
justified, real or illusory, scientific or ideological, legitimate or abusive.
One seeks to know what are the ties, what are the connections that can be
marked between mechanisms of coercion and elements of knowledge,
what games of dismissal and support are developed from the one to the
2007 The Author
Journal compilation 2007 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia

Education and/or Displacement?

365

others, what it is that enables some element of knowledge to take up

effects of power assigned in a similar system to a true or probable or
uncertain or false element, and what it is that enables some process of
coercion to acquire the form and the justifications proper to a rational,
calculated, technically efficient, and so forth, element. (Foucault, 1996,
p. 393)
All in all, Foucaults perspective on the question of truth has shifted in comparison
to (e.g.) Kant who sought to determine What can I know?. Contrary to Kant,
Foucault intends to make clear the connections between chosen elements of knowledge and particular effects of power5 (cf. Thompson, 2004). Put differently, the
conditions of acceptability regarding the connection of chosen elements of knowledge
and power come into focus. The exposition of these conditions gives us insights
into our historically specific situation, and this is why Foucault denotes this work
as critical ontology of the present.
The expression ontology of the present harbours a relation of tension between
the existence of power-knowledge and its contingency. While the emergence of our
(modern) self-determination (as autonomous and self-transparent subjects) itself
appears as part of a historically defined network of power-knowledge, Foucaults
historicophilosophical practice makes the horizon of our self-constitution accessible
and changeable. How can this changeability be understood or how can the critical
moment of the ontology of the present be made clear?
The possible shifts of our subjectivity are due to the contingency of the analyzed
power-knowledge-formations, the discontinuities and break lines that the analyses
display: It was e.g. not pre-determined that desire, concupiscence, the sexual
behaviour of individuals ought effectively be articulated by one another in a system
of knowledge and normalcy called sexuality (Foucault, 1996, p. 395). By presenting elements that are not fixated in a network of causality, the consequences of the
genealogical procedure become manifest: What the analyses of power-knowledge
offer are not pyramidal causal relations (this would imply that the analyses aspire
to scientific representation and regard themselves as free from power structures),
but rather movements along the precarious borders of our being: [I]n the course
of their history, men have never ceased to construct themselves, that is, to continually displace their subjectivity, to constitute themselves in an infinite, multiple
series of different subjectivities that will never have an end and never bring us in
the presence of something that would be man. Men are perpetually engaged
in a process that, in constituting objects, at the same displaces man, deforms,
transforms, and transfigures him as a subject (Foucault, 2000, p. 276, my italics).
According to Foucault, the subject and object of the human sciences cannot escape
their historicitythe inquiries into particular discourses or practices are local and
limited with respect to our changing and changed point of view. Thus, genealogy
means (1) bringing to light the multiple origins (Herkunft as Foucault says, reminiscent of Nietzsche) of a particular element of power-knowledge and (2) considering
or acknowledging our very impact on as well as our entanglement with the undertaken analysis. Foucault follows Nietzsche when emphasizing the aspect of fiction
2007 The Author
Journal compilation 2007 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia

366

Christiane Thompson

and fabrication: Genealogy is an anti-science (Foucault, 1978, p. 62); for it

disavows the methodological control of the objects of investigation as well as the
self-sameness of the subject-function in the acquisition of knowledge.
The genealogical intuition is also reflected in the following passage: It is
accurate that we have to give up the hope ever to reach a position that would grant
us complete and ultimate knowledge regarding what constitutes our historical borders.
And taking up this point of view, the theoretical and practical experience that we
make of our borders and their transgression is itself always limited, determined,
and it needs to be restarted time and again (Foucault, 1990, p. 50). The critical
ontology of the present is an ever changing and endless project. It is a project that
is, on the one hand, conscious of the finitude and the limits of its own endeavour and
that, on the other hand, only determines these limits through its own employment. The
actuality of this employment makes Foucault relate his work to the Enlightenment6
as a situative and socially contextualized project, rather than bringing it into connection with a particular philosophical course. Indeed, the critical ontology of the
present goes hand in hand with an altered conception of philosophy.
It goes without saying that a philosophically complete systematic must be
deemed inadequate given Foucaults heuristic attitude. However, over and above
the impossibility of coherent theory, a critical ontology of the presentas is suggested by Foucaultcan hardly be understood as a purely conceptual task. It is
interesting that Foucault continuously refers to philosophy as philosophical
activity (e.g. Foucault, 1989, pp. 156, my italics), and he calls his work a historicophilosophical practice (Foucault, 1996, p. 391). Employing the concept of practice,
Foucault does not only demonstrate that a separation of theory from societal
practice is impossible, he indicates that the efforts undertaken cannot be reduced
to reflection or, more generally speaking, to the realm of thought. In a paper
presented in 1978 to the French Society of Philosophy, Foucault notes that the
question of power-knowledge puts philosophical labor, philosophical thought,
philosophical analysis into empirical contents sketched out precisely by it (Foucault,
1996, p. 391, my italics). Philosophy cannot remain philosophy, but always forms
a specific genealogical venture transgressing the realm of reflection.
As an example, one can refer to Foucaults discussion concerning the history
of critique or the critical attitude (Foucault, 1996, pp. 3836). Here, Foucault
explicitly does not limit his scope to a conceptual analysis regarding the philosophical origin of critique, which became so prominent with Kants Critique of
Pure Reason (Kant, 1992). Rather, he tells a different history by determining clues
within the history of the increasing governmental techniques permeating all the
areas of social life since the early Modern Era. According to Foucault, these clues
make critique understandable as a reaction to the governmental strategies: Critique
can be formulated as to how it is possible not to be governed like that, by that, in
the name of these principles, in view of such objectivities and by the means of such
methods, not like that, not for that, not by them (Foucault, 1996, p. 384). Here,
critique receives a different undertone by being placed within social practice:
as such it is local, situation dependent, and in a very prominent sense empirical,
i.e. as opposed to general, pure, and universal.
2007 The Author
Journal compilation 2007 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia

Education and/or Displacement?

367

Furthermore, Foucaults [hi]story of critique is remarkable in a different sense:

It is a story told in front of philosophers who have very specific expectations
regarding the presentation of a philosophical paper. By telling the empirically
determined history of a philosophically central concept like critique, Foucault
suggests a different engagement of the philosophers with his paper and the topics
of the paper. The later discussion reveals that the philosophers who heard
Foucaults paper had exactly this problem: to accept the way Foucault presented
the origins of (philosophical) critique. It is interesting that in his paper, Foucault
alludes to the assumption that he is not fulfilling the philosophers expectations
(Foucault, 1996, p. 391).
The large number of interviews given by Foucault conveys the extent to which
the concept of practice is indispensable for characterizing Foucaults work. What
I have in mind is not so much Foucaults statement that his working interests often
arose from personal engagement,7 but rather the importance of Foucaults relationship to himself. The results of the historicophilosophical practice are not external
to the subject (like in an arbitrary extension of knowledge). A distinction that
Foucault draws in the interview with Trombadori might help to clarify this point:
When speaking of savoir, Foucault means a procedure that changes the subject in
the constitution of knowledge, whereas connaissance intends the multiplication of
the knowable objects, and leaves the inquiring subject unaltered (Foucault, 2000,
p. 256). It is here that the concept of experience becomes relevant; for it precisely
denotes that we have undergone something, we have changed in an unpredictable
fashion. Therefore, there is something uncontrollable in experience, something that
cannot be foreseen, and that cannot be brought into the continuity of reflection.
Experiences are about having a bearing predominantly in the actual relationship
that we maintain toward ourselves, a relationship that lies at the very centre of the
critical ontology of the present. Thus, experience is intimately tied to the critical
ontology of the present, because it brings into view our relationship to ourselves,
and it is precisely this relationship that lies at the heart of the critical ontology of
the present. Put differently, Foucaults critical ontology and experience complement
each other, as his emphasis on practice makes clear.
After having situated the concept of experience within Foucaults work, I would
like to focus on its further systematic implications. First of all, Foucault speaks of
experience more precisely as limit-experience, stressing irrevocability, rigidity, and
discontinuity with respect to its outcome. The rigid and absolute trait comes to the
fore in the expression that the idea of limit-experience wrenches the subject from
itself (Foucault, 2000, p. 241). Limit-experiences always take place at the limits
of what is possible to experience because they mark a caesura in the relationship of
the self to itself.8 Here, the aforementioned unpredictability gains a new facet:
Over and above the negativity and passivity that we always already associate with
experience (experience as something that happens to us and that implies a turning
point in our engagement with the world), the suggested liminality interrupts a
meaningful history of experience. The metaphors in use describe a movement
away from us (us being a marking point of projection for determining the role of
experience).
2007 The Author
Journal compilation 2007 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia

368

Christiane Thompson

Interruption, unpredictability, irrevocabilityall these concepts suggest that the

limit-experience is an uncomfortable experience, and that it is an uncontrollable
and risky event; for this kind of experience does not merely leave open where we
are going to end up, it also undermines the general perspective of development
and enrichment through experience. The self-confident idea of becoming someone
still clings to the subject as cardinal point for the progression of experience (even
though the subject cannot remain the same in the process). In contrast to the
experience for the sake of the subject, Foucault emphasizes the experimental
character of his activities (Foucault, 1996, p. 24). Experience and experiment share
the same etymological root (experiri), and as such both exhibit a sense of attempt
as well as the necessity of giving oneself over to this attempt. In the history of
philosophy, Foucault argues, the dignity of this attempt has often been interpreted
in relation to the generality of the acquisition of knowledge. Foucault reclaims the
situative character of experience, and thus, the impossibility of foreseeing its
outcomes. The dignity of experimental experience lies in its critical impetus: in its
possibility to bring about a radical break away from ourselves. In what follows,
I would like to point out the consequences for an educational-philosophical thinking that wants to take up the correspondence between Foucaults critical ontology
of the present and his understanding of limit-experience.9
2. Limit-Experience as an Educational Theme?
Even though philosophical approaches to education can show a variety of forms,
one is immediately referred to the obstacles that a reference to Foucaults work
implies. There are at least three issues that come to mind where the first issue
refers to the concepts and figures used in the educational realm.
Clearly, Foucaults limit-experience moves away from a perspective of learning
as an acquisition of competences and the constitution of a valuable self. The
perspective of enrichment and extension is abandoned in favour of a displacement
of the self, a breaking-away of the subject from itself. This systematic figure seems
to be counterintuitive to pedagogical intentions and practices where we interpret
the learner as taking up a specific relationship to the learning experience: In
learning, the learner gains traditionally a new facet of herself, she has an experience about herself which changes her viewpoint regarding the world as well as
herself. Learning is an accomplishment and nowadays an indispensable condition
of our existence. Even when we look at crises and difficult situations within our
lives, the horizon of learning is determined by the idea of how we can meet our
challenges and not, as Foucault suggests, by an event of displacement or desubjectivation.10 Whenever we speak of learning in processes we have a coherence
or focal point in mind that does not seem to fit together with limit-experience.
Secondly, Foucaults reference to experience can be read as a critical reaction
to the contemporary governmental regimes that, in a very prominent way, have
evolved around learning and the so-called learning society. Learning refers, in
manifold ways, to the structures of how the individuals are to govern themselves:
It structures our futures as well as our relationship to others regarding the learning
2007 The Author
Journal compilation 2007 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia

Education and/or Displacement?

369

process. Furthermore, it allows us to speak about inputs and outputs, it provides

the framework for evaluating our efficiency as well as defining outstanding demands,
etc.11 When pointing toward the radical break away from ourselves, Foucault hints
at a caesura in the ongoing and mostly inexplicit determinations of human subjectivity, determinations that are also ascertained in an educational horizon.
Foucault sees his work as a procedure that brings to light the historical genesis
of our attitudes as well as our beliefs, and thus, interrupts their being taken-forgranted (cf. Foucault, 1993a, p. 17).
Thirdly, limit-experience resists the integration into an educational theoretical
horizon because of Foucaults specific use of language as something that is not in
the hand of a meaningful subject but rather brought into view in terms of practice.
In this paper, the presentation of Foucaults main ideas has taken up the problematic form of a theoretical horizon. However, to speak about main ideas and the like
does itself have implications for our understanding of Foucaults project: We start
to speak about it as a coherent whole that shows a certain anatomy or philology.
Still, it is in some sense misleading to denote (limit-)experience as a conceptas
it has been done here.12
When speaking of the empirical dimensions of the critical ontology of the
present, Foucault brings his specific relationship to bear on the realm of thought
as well as language. One is confronted with the actuality and situativity of the
spoken words that can neither be interpreted as following from the authors intentions nor as determined by the structures and the validity of meaning. It is here
that Foucault appeals to a circular self-directed (but yet not sovereign) language,
a language in danger of falling back into silence or being pushed to extreme forms
as in the writings of Bataille, Blanchot, and Klossowski: The collapse of philosophical subjectivity, its dissipation in the inner realm of language which deprives
subjectivity of its power, yet multiplies it in the space of being a gap, is most likely
the basic structure of our thinking today (Foucault, 1993b, p. 80). According to
Foucault, the dissolution of a philosophical centre within speaking, thinking, and
philosophizing finds its counterpart in a shift or transgression within the philosopher, to be precise in a [n]on-dialectic limit-language that only establishes itself
with the transgression of the one who speaks (ibid., p. 82, my italics). Such a transgression is to be understood in terms of exposition: It is maybe language which
determines that very area of experience in which the speaking subject exposes
itself instead of expressing itself; it is to meet its own finitude and is referred to its
death under every word (ibid., p. 88). This quote complements Foucaults talk
of language and discourse as an intertwinement of inner and outer, an oscillation
between continuity and discontinuity, between rule and event in the analysis of
elements of power-knowledge.
Foucaults remarks on (limit-)experience and language impose on us the question
of whether in this rhetoric of liminality, of displacement and transgression, there
is still space for theory, andmore specificallyfor educational theory.13 How
are we to understand educational-philosophical reflections considering the difficulties mentioned above that refer to different levelslevels that one can perhaps
circumscribe with the concepts subject, power, and truth? One course would
2007 The Author
Journal compilation 2007 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia

370

Christiane Thompson

be to interpret Foucaults critical ontology of the present predominantly as an

analytic instrument that makes clear our mostly inexplicit understanding of subjectivity, of intersubjectivity, of society etc. (a) within the educational discourse,
and (b) with reference to contemporary educational practices. In this case,
Foucaults critical ontology of the present is primarily understood as an analytic
instrument.
To go a step further and take Foucaults limit-experience as an incitement for
educational questions implies a shift within our understanding of education. Given
what has been presented above, such a shift dismisses the idea of a self-same subject
that widens its horizon in the process of learning. In search for displacement and
transgression, it denotes the limits of the contemporary regime of subjectivity, and
challenges the idea of unimpeded theory. In what follows, I would like to lay out
in how far such a shift meets the challenges with which the educational sciences
have to deal continually, and how this shift may find its way into university study
programs (educational studies). Referring to singularity, I will speculate about a
specific writing practice, and show how Foucaults limit-experience, as a source
of irritation and resistance, can find a place in the educational sciences.
3. Some Preliminary Reflections on Writing and Limit-Experience
for Educational Studies
Education is indissolubly connected to the problem of singularity. I use the term
singularity in order to denote pedagogical thought and action as something that is
at its very heart and uniquely determined (a) by the individual addressees of
pedagogical action, (b) by situational factors, (c) by specific interpretative accomplishments and their suspenseful placement between present and future (d).14
(a) A teacher, e.g., will always have to consider the different students and classes
she has to work with: A didactic or educational approach that works for some might
not work for others. Pedagogical work requires that the professional engage with
the specific point of development and the horizon of understanding that the
students are in. (b) Equally, the situation determines, at a very fundamental level,
the perspective of pedagogical reflection and action: For her professional activity,
a social worker, e.g., will have to consider the recent life situation of her clients as
well as the present situation in which the consultation takes place. Especially in
the beginning of a series of consultations, situational factors can be decisive for
establishing a relationship with the client. (c) Furthermore, at the very basis of
pedagogical situations lies the fact that they are the results of interpretative actions.
These interpretations, however, differ for the various participants of the pedagogical setting: What appears to a parent as a merely explanatory remark towards her
children might appear to the latter as a distrustful estimation regarding their own
judgement. So, it is not only that the external factors of a pedagogical situation are
constantly changing: The specific view of pedagogical interaction is also singular
regarding the incongruous or even incompatible situation interpretations of the
different participants. (d) Last but not least, education always refers to an open
future: Pedagogical thought and action are dependent on the future developments
2007 The Author
Journal compilation 2007 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia

Education and/or Displacement?

371

of the pedagogical addressee. These developments are mostly anticipated as aims.

However, they only become manifest with the pedagogical actions themselves.
All in all, singularity confronts the educational sciences with a fundamental
problem, i.e. the problem that knowledge and theory cannot finally grasp the
pedagogical setting: Since knowledge and theory operate at a general level, they
can never cover singularity. No matter, e.g. how much experience we have as
teachers, our knowledge can never go so far as to fully embrace the always-unique
pedagogical setting that lies before us. In short, the generality of theory can never
encompass the uniqueness of pedagogical practice.
This is not to say that the educational sciences are unconscious of the challenges
that singularity implies for pedagogical thought and action. Certainly, the educational sciences do not understand themselves as a technical discipline, a discipline
that would proceed on the assumption of a straightforward mediation of theory
and practice within education. In other words, it is rare that educational theorists
oversee the difficult relation between theory and practice. The mainstream interprets singularity as a challenge, or as a problem for the educational sciences and
studies: Facing the inevitability of pedagogical action, it is necessary to engage with
singularity as a permanent challenge or problem for educational activity. However,
it seems to be important here to take a look at the systematic configuration mainly
underlying this argument: Singularity is presented as something that must be
handled. No matter whether this handling is deemed possible by a specific pedagogical knowledge or the renewed trust in pedagogical ethossingularity is brought
under the perspective of accomplishment, i.e. as something we have to take up as
a challenge in order to minimize its consequences for education.
A different approach would be to acknowledge that singularity marks an insurmountable border for educational theory and practice. In the German discourse of
the philosophy of education, Michael Wimmer (1996) has reclaimed a fundamental
impossibility-to-know for the educational realm, and this impossibility-to-know
infects all pedagogical knowledge. Pedagogical knowledge is, then, always thwarted
by something that can never become knowledge (Wimmer, 1996, p. 425). From
here, Wimmer interprets the very impossibility to neutralize singularity, to handle
it, to do justice to the Other, that is specific to, or even constitutive of education.
Such an approach to singularity certainly does not imply the dismissal of theory
altogether. Yet, it seems to request a self-reflective work on the subjects relationship
to knowledge. In other words: If singularity regulates our pedagogical engagement
at the most fundamental level (and if it even determines our idea of the pedagogical
in general), it is a central task of educational studies to bring these issues to the
students attention. This would imply not only offering the students pedagogical
theories which allow for the deciphering of pedagogical settings but also to bring
the aforementioned impossibility-to-know into focus. Put differently, the borders
of knowledge and the constitutive function of these borders for education need to
become clear (without devaluating theory and making the students return to their
problematic every day understanding of pedagogical phenomena).
Could it be that present day educational studies are too confident regarding the
possibility to deal with singularity? Are the organizing principles of educational
2007 The Author
Journal compilation 2007 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia

372

Christiane Thompson

studies, i.e. the educational discourses and practices within educational studies, too
strongly determined by a faith in the positivity of knowledge? When students
understand their studies as an expansion of knowledge and a widening of their own
perspectives, do they recognize the aforementioned fundamental resistance to
knowledge? To what extent does the relationship between lecturer and student
mostly understood as between the knowing versus the not-yet-knowing individual
contribute to this problem?
My idea is that Foucaults remarks on limit-experience (as coming out of the
reading and writing of experience books) might offer basic suggestions regarding
the role of singularity within educational studies. Since Foucault distances himself
from the perspective of accomplishment, the quest for truth, and the idea of
legitimacy, his critical ontology of the present might also be helpful in making
our constructions of subjectivity clear, i.e. our representations of the powerful
pedagogue who thinks that her work is all about having the relevant knowledge at
her disposal. Foucaults suggestions of a critical ethos can then serve to expose us
to singularity. Might the practice of writing serve as a point of departure for this
exposition?
Writing is a central practice within educational studies. It is a practice that
functions on multiple levels. It combines purposes such as collection and recollection,
communication and exchange, clarification and the reduction of complexity, categorization and the establishment of order, self-reflection but also self-forgetfulness
etc. Certainly, it is also a practice that is carried out by the students in order to
prove their understanding of the relevant material, e.g. in term papers. There are
standards to be met, which form the basis for evaluating the students performance.
To put it in Foucaults terms, writing is a work of the subject on itself in order to
grant it access to truth (cf. Foucault, 2004, p. 70). Writing implies an engagement
with the study material, and thereby, constitutes first the necessity of this engagement and the significance of an active problem-solving subject. Is it possible to
establish beside this tribunal of truth- and the knowledge-oriented type of writing
a different kind of writing that takes up some provocations from Foucaults remarks
on limit-experience and experience-books?
Let us imagine a type of writing which is not concerned about coherent presentation, but rather runs in shorter or longer episodes with the aim of adopting a
critical ethos and casting a side glance at the study process or progression. This
writing could pursue a discourse analytic point of view, e.g. by carving out the
self-understanding of the student as student when speaking of all upcoming issues
as challenges and problems, a self-understanding which inevitably propels the
perspective of handling these issues. To simply collect the concepts students use
in order to describe their studies (advancement, difficulties, challenges, multiperspectivity, time-constraints, approval, insufficiency, overload etc.) could help
them to lay out the techniques they apply in order to become study active individuals, and enable their first steps toward pedagogical professionalism. In a very
similar fashion, they could write about their interaction with the professors, about
the discourses and practices of engaging with the theoretical study material and of
entering pedagogical practice in the form of practical training or internships.
2007 The Author
Journal compilation 2007 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia

Education and/or Displacement?

373

It is perhaps already evident that the students would apply this writing practice
without judging or rating themselves or other students. Here, the suggested writing
practice differs from all self-evaluative techniques that we are acquainted with
today. The quality perspective is abandoned in favour of a mere descriptive attitude. If there were at all a quality view involved, then it would have to be the
students attention e.g. regarding the breakdown or failure of their understanding,
their experience (e.g. in practical school training) to be unable to awaken their
pupils interest etc.; for it seems easier to bring the constructions of subject, power,
and truth to attention when these constructions fail, i.e. when we are not able to
constitute ourselves as masters of the situation.
Accordingly, the results of this writing would not be subject to judgment on the
side of the professor. Instead of rating this material according to legitimacy or
adequacy it would rather be necessary to offer accompaniment as well as an open
forum, on the one hand, and to support the students in exercising this practice, on
the other. In any case, it is crucial not to cover up the diffractions within the
students view: The oblique glance is to remain alien to the internal study perspective, and not to be integrated into the quest for improving the organization of
the study program or the like.
Utilizing the format of a notebook or a cahier, the students writings would
form a fragmentary documentation that has to do with their experience and the
borders of their being. By now it should have become clear that this documentation surrounding experience does not have much to do with the confession style
of diaries and internship reports. The students, rather, develop elements of a
genealogy regarding their own steps to future professionalism. This genealogy
brings the students in touch with themselves, and maybe it helps to challenge
their constitution as knowledgeable students. It could be that they come to see
that our relation to the world, to others, and to ourselves does not have to be
the way it is. This includes that our interpretation of educational situations are events
just as historical as they are social. It might then be possible to encourage an
attitude that does not silence singularity, but allows it to remain a perpetual
irritation for educational theory as well as for the (future) professional educational
activity.
Certainly, there are a number of difficulties that one encounters when attempting
to give impulses to such a writing practice. The step following these preliminary
reflections about a different type of writing would, therefore, have to examine its
own possibilities and limits. These analyses would have to include the following
questions: Given the complex demands of such a writing practice, how can we
integrate it into the study progression without contributing to the idea of the
powerful and knowledgeable educator? How can such a writing practice be furthered at all, given the writing problems that students already have when entering
the university? What are the measures of success for a practice that attempts to take
up a critical stance against success? What role can failure and limitation have for
educational studies, given the fact that these individuals mustin their later
professional activityarrive at reliable judgments regarding their work and at
reasonable prospects for pedagogical action? Etc.
2007 The Author
Journal compilation 2007 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia

374

Christiane Thompson

These are far-reaching questions. Thus, I will leave open whether limit-experience
might be understood as an educational theme. In particular, it will require additional systematic efforts in order to explicate my intuition that it is predominantly
regarding the borders or limits of educational theory and practice that Michel
Foucaults work might provide productive irritations for the philosophical activity
surrounding education. Foucaults limit-experience in the framework of a critical
ontology of the present might be a way to bring about shifts within the selfunderstanding of people engaging with educational issues. To be sure, one could
argue that the last part of my paper moves away from Foucaults scope and his
dense historical analyses. Yet, it might be that Foucaults self-understanding as
lecturer at the Collge de France, his unfinished style of talking about the history
of thought (cf. Ewald in Foucault, 2004, pp. 1112), has something to do with the
students different relationship to their studies presented above.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Jan Masschelein and the philosophical-educational research seminar at the
University of Leuven for the fruitful discussion surrounding Foucaults work. I am also grateful
to James M. Thompson and Alan Duncan for helpful comments on different stages of the
manuscript.

Notes
1. In his book Lernen und Erfahrung [Learning and Experience], Gnther Buck (1989)
shows how experience lies at the heart of learning for such prominent philosophical
figures as Aristotle and Herbart.
2. Certainly, there are numerous educational-philosophical references to Foucaults work.
Whereas the German discourse in the philosophy of education has only recently valued
the inspirations stemming from Foucaults writings (cf. Ricken & Rieger-Ladich 2004,
Pongratz et al., 2004), there are numerous (and heterogeneous) references to Foucaults
work in Anglo-American educational research: As representative publications I want to
name Ball, 1990; Marshall, 1996; Olssen, 1999/2006, and Besley 2002. For a valuable
overview cf. Peters, 2004.
3. Cf. Foucault, 1996, p. 396.
4. For a detailed exposition regarding the possibilities and problems of Foucaults concept
of power: cf. Ricken, 2004.
5. In a recent paper, Mark Olssen has outlined Foucaults concept of critique as critical
ethos in relation to Kant (Olssen, 2006a). Olssen equally emphasizes the nonfoundational trait of Foucaults critical work on the history of thought. In the final part
of his paper, he shows that Foucaults concept of critique does not necessarily imply
relativism.
6. Cf. Foucault, 1990, 1996. Foucault refers to Kants paper published in the Berlinische
Monatsschrift (Kant, 1994).
7. The important impulses for Discipline and Punish came about e.g. when Foucault
engaged with the contemporary conditions of imprisonment (Foucault, 2000, p. 245).
Considering this connection, it can be seen that Foucault is himself a participant in the
contemporary games of truth and power (Foucault, 1978; Ewald 1978). In this sense,
Foucault speaks of the importance of constituting a new politics of truth (Foucault,
1978, p. 54, cf. Ewald & Waldenfels, 1992).
2007 The Author
Journal compilation 2007 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia

Education and/or Displacement?

375

8. In the interview with Trombadori, Foucault lets the reader know that he was inspired
by the concepts of experience suggested by Nietzsche, Blanchot and Bataille.
Experiences, according to these thinkers, push the subject to its annihilation or
dissolution (Foucault, 2000, p. 241). Foucault emphasizes that this was precisely the
significance that the reading of Nietzsches, Blanchots and Batailles works had for
him (ibid.).
9. Certainly, Foucaults historicophilosophical practice of analyzing specific elements of
power-knowledge can be of immense use for the educational-philosophical research,
especially if it is indebted to a historical perspective. On the one hand, Foucault
continuously thematizes aspects belonging to a pedagogical context: In The History of
Sexuality (vol. I) e.g., Foucault refers to the educators during the Enlightenment
displaying their significance for the incitation of discourses surrounding sexuality
(Foucault, 1983, pp. 2340, cf. Meyer-Drawe, 2004). On the other hand, educational
theorists and historians have taken up Foucaults work for their itemization of the
pedagogical. Juliane Jacobi (2000), a German historian of education, has reconstructed
educational practices in the famous German orphanage under August Hermann Francke
in the framework of the disciplinary formation of the individual. In Anglo-American
educational research, Bernadette Baker (2001) has cast a critical glance at the liberal
metanarrative of how the modern school was invented to serve the needs of the child
(Peters, 2004, p. 209). In the following, I will take up a different route by posing the
question of the extent to which the central concepts within Foucaults work can
themselves be understood as pedagogical concepts.
10. However, it should be pointed out that several philosophical accounts of education in
the Western tradition have emphasized the significance of negativity within or for learning
experiences. At the beginning of Western philosophy, Plato thematized the educational
relevance of recognizing ones own ignorance. Contemporary phenomenological theories
of learning even point out the damaging and destructing side of learning experiences:
Learning does not simply broaden horizons, but it more often tears down our formerly
held views and world-disclosing categories. In my opinion, Foucaults talk about desubjectivation goes further than the negativity in the aforementioned accounts because
it does not merely suggest the destruction of leading categories for understanding the
world including ourselves. Rather, it suggests the destruction of the subject itself.
11. Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons have provided a detailed governmental analysis
of the European area of education (2005).
12. I am indebted to Jan Masschelein who voiced this thought in a recent conversation.
13. Alfred Schfer (2003) has taken up this thought by engaging in the question of whether
power can be regarded as a basic pedagogical concept.
14. In what follows, I will briefly characterize these four points without providing theoretical
references and backgrounds for the given examples. My idea, here, is to give a concise
account of a very general aspect in pedagogical interaction without running into
theoretical debt. Certainly, the named aspects ad) appear differently when spelling
them out in relation to other theoretical horizons. And certainly, considering different
conceptualizations of the educator or the pedagogical interaction, one arrives at different
theoretical insights as well as desiderata. In the present context, I am interested in
relating the singularity of the pedagogical with the role that radical historicity plays
for Foucault.

References
Baker, B. (2001) In Perpetual Motion: Theories of Power, Educational History, and the Child
(New York, Peter Lang).
Ball, St. J., ed. (1990) Foucault and Education (London, Routledge).
2007 The Author
Journal compilation 2007 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia

376

Christiane Thompson

Benjamin, W. (1992) Berliner Kindheit um Neunzehnhundert. Fassung letzter Hand (Frankfurt/M.,

Suhrkamp).
Besley, T. (2002) Counselling Youth: Foucault, Power and the Ethics of Subjectivity (Westport, CT,
Praeger Publishers).
Buck, G. (1989) Lernen und Erfahrung: zum Begriff der didaktischen Induktion (Darmstadt,
WBG).
Ewald, F. (1978) FoucaultEin vagabundierendes Denken, in: M. Foucault, Dispositive der
Macht. Michel Foucault ber Sexualitt,Wissen und Wahrheit (Berlin, Merve).
Ewald, F. & Waldenfels, B., eds (1992) Spiele der Wahrheit. Michel Foucaults Denken (Frankfurt/
M., Suhrkamp).
Foucault, M. (1977) berwachen und Strafen. Die Geburt des Gefngnisses (Frankfurt/M.,
Suhrkamp).
Foucault, M. (1978) Dispositive der Macht. Michel Foucault ber Sexualitt, Wissen und Wahrheit
(Berlin, Merve).
Foucault, M. (1981) Die Archologie des Wissens (Frankfurt/M., Suhrkamp).
Foucault, M. (1983) Der Wille zum Wissen. Sexualitt und Wahrheit 1, (Frankfurt/M., Suhrkamp).
Foucault, M. (1987) Nietzsche, die Genealogie, die Historie, in: W. Seitter (ed.), Von der
Subversion des Wissens (Frankfurt/M., Fischer Taschenbuch).
Foucault, M. (1989) Der Gebrauch der Lste. Sexualitt und Wahrheit 2 (Frankfurt/M.,
Suhrkamp).
Foucault, M. (1990) Was ist Aufklrung? in E. Erdmann, R. Frost, A. Honneth (eds), Ethos der
Moderne: Foucaults Kritik der Aufklrung (Frankfurt/M./New York, Campus).
Foucault, M. (1993a) Technologien des Selbst, in: H. Martin, H. Gutman, P. H. Hutton (eds),
Technologien des Selbst (Frankfurt/M., Fischer).
Foucault, M. (1993b) Schriften zur Literatur (Frankfurt/M., Fischer).
Foucault, M. (1994) The Order of Things: An Archaeology of Human Sciences (London, Random)
Foucault, M. (1996) What is Critique?, in: J. Schmidt (ed.), What is Enlightenment? EighteenthCentury Answers and Twentieth-Century Questions (Berkeley, University of California
Press).
Foucault, M. (2000) Interview with Michel Foucault, in: Power. Essential Works of Foucault 1954
1984, edited by J. D. Faubion (New York, The New Press).
Foucault, M. (2004) Hermeneutik des Subjekts.Vorlesung am Collge de France (1981/2) (Frankfurt/
M., Suhrkamp).
Heidegger, M. (1993) Sein und Zeit (Tbingen, Niemeyer).
Jacobi, J. (2000) Der Blick auf das Kind. Zur Entstehung der Pdagogik in den Schulen des
Halleschen Waisenhauses, in: J. Neumann, U. Strter (eds.), Das Kind in Pietismus und
Aufklrung (Tbingen, Max Niemeyer) pp. 4760.
Kant, I. (1992) Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Hamburg, Meiner).
Kant, I. (1994) Was ist Aufklrung. Aufstze zur Geschichte und Philosophie (Gttingen,
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht).
Marshall, J. D. (1996) Michel Foucault: Personal Autonomy and Education (London, Kluwer
Academic).
Masschelein, J. (2006) Experience and the Limits of Governmentality, Educational Philosophy
and Theory, 38, 4, pp. 561576.
Masschelein, J. & Simons, M. (2005) Globale Immunitt oder Eine kleine Kartographie des
europischen Bildungsraums (Zrich, Diaphanes).
Meyer-Drawe, K. (2004) Hygienische Imaginationen. Der Schrecken der Selbstbefleckung
im Philanthropinismus, in: S. Zaun, D. Watzke, J. Steigerwald (eds), Imagination und
Sexualitt. Pathologien der Einbildungskraft im medizinischen Diskurs der frhen Neuzeit
(Frankfurt/M., Klostermann) pp. 209223.
Olssen, M. (1999/2006) Michel Foucault:Materialism and Education (Boulder, Paradigm Publishers).
Olssen M. (2006a) Foucault and the Imperatives of Education: Critique and Self-Creation in a
Non-Foundational World, Studies in Philosophy and Education, 25, pp. 245271.
2007 The Author
Journal compilation 2007 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia

Education and/or Displacement?

377

Peters, M. A. (2004) Why Foucault? New Directions in Anglo-American Educational Research,

in: L. Pongratz, M. Wimmer, W. Nieke & J. Masschelein (eds), Nach Foucault.
Diskurs- und machtanalytische Perspektiven der Pdagogik. (Wiesbaden, VS Verlag) pp. 195
219.
Pongratz, L., Wimmer, M., Masschelein, J. & Nieke, W., eds (2004) Nach Foucault. Diskurs- und
machtanalytische Perspektiven der Pdagogik (Wiesbaden, VS Verlag)
Ricken, N. (2004) Die Macht der Macht. Rckfragen an Michel Foucault, in: N. Ricken &
M. Rieger-Ladich (eds), Michel Foucault: Pdagogische Lektren (Wiesbaden, VS Verlag)
pp. 119143.
Ricken, N. & Rieger-Ladich, M. (2004) Michel Foucault: Pdagogische Lektren (Wiesbaden,
VS Verlag).
Schfer, A. (2003) Machtein pdagogischer Grundbegriff? berlegungen im Anschlu an die
genealogischen Betrachtungen Foucaults, in: N. Ricken & M. Rieger-Ladich (eds), Michel
Foucault: Pdagogische Lektren (Wiesbaden, VS Verlag) pp. 145163.
Thompson, C. (2004) Foucaults Zuschnitt von Kritik und Aufklrung, in: L. Pongratz,
M. Wimmer, W. Nieke & J. Masschelein (eds), Nach Foucault. Diskurs- und machtanalytische Perspektiven der Pdagogik. (Wiesbaden, VS Verlag) pp. 3049.
Wimmer, M. (1996) Zerfall des AllgemeinenWiederkehr des Singulren. Pdagogische
Professionalitt und der Wert des Wissens, in: A. Combe & W. Helsper (eds), Pdagogische
Professionalitt. Untersuchungen zum Typus pdagogischen Handelns (Frankfurt/M.,
Suhrkamp) pp. 404447.

2007 The Author

Journal compilation 2007 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia